This Ford Escort XR3 looks better than it did when it left the factory

The ‘Tolman’ name will be familiar to most petrolheads these days, what with its reputation for offering restomods of various classics such as the Peugeot 205 GTI and Talbot Sunbeam Lotus. And now, it’s taken those learnings and applied them to a restoration of one of the Ford Escort XR3.

The whole thing started with a specific request from a customer, who presented Tolman with an unfinished project from another restorer who presumably abandoned the job because, well, headache. It’s estimated that less than 200 carburettor cars are left standing on UK roads, so sourcing parts for an XR3’s restoration is no easy task.

However, over 18 months, the bodyshell was overhauled and over 1,000 parts were replaced, and the result is… astonishing. It’s hard to believe that this car is, in essence, an amalgamation of used parts and refreshed metal. Duly, this has prompted Tolman to add the Escort XR3 to its ‘official’ list of restomods moving forward. The price remains undisclosed for now, though.

Chris Tolman, the company’s founder said: “We have to be more innovative, drawing on different networks and ways to find the harder-to-find parts and reproducing or restoring the ones you simply can’t buy. But it’s really satisfying to restore a car to factory specification, hunting down the near-impossible-to-find parts and ensuring it looks like we remember them.”

What do we think, readers? Yay or nay to the Tolman Escort XR3 restomod?